Before we leave Militant-Jihad-Free Oman

Photo from BBC News (thank you, BBC)

A word from Sultan Qaboos himself:

...stagnation resulted in a weakness of the Muslim nation, which, in recent years, has brought about fanaticism based on a lack of knowledge among the Muslim youth about the correct facts of their religion. This was exploited by some to perpetrate violence and propagate cases of difference which led to discord and hatred.

Therefore, in order that Muslims should not remain backward, while others advance, they are required by the Law of Islam to rectify this situation and renew and revise their thinking, so that they can apply the right solutions to modern problems that are facing the Islamic community. Thus they can show the world the reality of Islam and its principles which are applicable to all times and places.

Obstinacy in religious understanding leads to backwardness in Muslims, prevalence of violence and intolerance. This, as a matter of fact, is far removed from Islam which rejects exaggeration and bigotry, because it is the religion of liberality.

Excerpt from the Sultan's National Day speech, 1994.

Before we leave Militant-Jihad-Free Oman...

What most of Oman must have looked like before 1970

What Muscat looks like today

Again, this was the level of development in Oman prior to 1970

This is what Oman looks like today.

Before we leave Oman, I wanted to share with you some more amazing factoids about the Sultanate.

At the time the current leader, Sultan Qaboos, seized control from his father in a coup in 1970, Oman was one of the world's most backward countries. As a Washington Post reporter, Chris Kutschera, wrote at the time, in Oman "the clock of history was stopped somewhere in the Middle Ages." This was because in spite of Oman's already vast oil wealth, the long-reigning Sultan's ruling theory had essentially been, “Keep the dogs hungry, [and] they will follow you,” according to the Post report.

Kutschera described what life was like back in 1970:

Everything, it seemed was forbidden. The inhabitants of the coast were forbideen to travel inland, and those of the inland valleys could not go to the coast, or even from one valley to another. No one was allowed to go to Dhofar, in the extreme southwest.

There were, in all Oman and Dhofar, three primary schools and not a single secondary school. Students who wanted to pursue their studies had to leave their country illegally and start a long life of exile in the Persian Gulf or Kuwait. It was forbidden to build new houses, or to repair the old ones; forbidden to install a lavatory or a gas stove; forbidden to cultivate new land, or to buy a car without the Sultan’s permission.

No one could smoke in the streets, go to movies or beat drums; the army used to have a band, but one day the Sultan had the instruments thrown into the sea. A few foreigners opened a club: he had it shut, “probably because it was a place where one could have fun”, says one of his former victims. Three hours after sunset, the city gates were closed.

Anyone caught outside after curfew was shot upon sight unless they were carrying a lantern as opposed to a flashlight so the Sultan's guards could see who was out after sunset. The Sultan also discouraged anyone from wearing eyeglasses and routinely threw people in prison who had appeared to him in his dreams.

(For those readers born after 1970, who think we were all still living in the Middle Ages back then, realize that by then air travel was routine elsewhere in the world, and an American astronaut had already taken that "one small step for mankind" on the moon.)

Not surprisingly, there were several attempts to overthrow this Sultan Said. The person who finally succeeded was, ironically, his own son, who was at the time of the coup, a 30-year-old who had been living under house arrest next door to his father's palace for some six years, since his return from England where he had gone to pursue his studies at Sandhurst, the elite British military academy.

Just after Qaboos seized control of the Sultanate, he described himself this way to the Washington Post reporter: "I am a man with one foot in my country -- backwards as it is, with its tribal customs, its life dominated by Islam -- and the other in the 20th century. I must be very careful to keep my balance.

“You cannot run before you walk,” he went on to say. “Most of the population that lives in the interior of the country still does not live with its time. What these people want before anything else is education and health. As long as we provide them with these fast enough, there will not be any problem”.

In response to whether he would begin the process of writing of a constitution or empowering a legislature, he was reportedly "blunt" in his response:

“It would be a mistake, a big mistake," he told the reporter. "Most of the people do not even know what a vote is... In these conditions to draft a constitution, to set up a parliament would be like building a huge dome without either walls or foundations. It might perhaps give a nice impression to the outside world, but it would be nothing but a big show. Look how people vote in Egypt. They are driven to the polls in army trucks. If there were a parliament now, I would have to choose its members among the sheikhs and a few others. What would be the significance of such a body”?

Thirty-six years later we can examine what type of leader Sultan Qaboos became.

In 1970, there were only three primary schools in Oman, now there are 1,000 government schools, 150 private schools, as well as colleges, technical and vocational institutes, and a university.

One missionary hospital has now been replaced by some 47 hospitals, 1,800 public health clinics, and a number of private hospitals. Average life expectancy has increased from 47 to 74 years.

Ten kilometers of paved roads have been expanded and there are now more than 8,000 kilometers of paved roads, not to mention international airports and seaports.

Foreigners are now welcome. And in an effort to develop tourism in order to wean the country away from an excessive dependence on oil revenues, in 1996 the Islamic ban on pork and alcohol products was lifted to accomodate non-Muslim guests of the Sultanate.

There were no printed materials published in Oman when Sultan Qaboos took over, and of course, no television or radio stations either. Now Oman has over 35 national newspapers and magazines, radio and television stations, and was one of the first Gulf states to introduce satellite television. While it is still illegal to criticize the Sultan or Islam, and the press cannot be categorized as free, one has to acknowledge the progress that has been made.

The Sultan still has absolute power but he did create an elected consultative council in 1991 to advise him on legislation and in 2003 granted universal suffrage rights to all Omanis over the age of 21.

To appreciate that this was enlightened on the Sultan's part, note that the United Arab Emirates did not hold its first national elections of this sort until 2006. Saudi Arabia has yet to hold national elections for its Majlis ash-Shura or consultative legislative body, not to mention that it has yet to extend voting rights of any significant kind to women.

(Then again, maybe this is a good thing with respect to Saudi Arabia - or so I'm told.)

British Muslim youth more in favor of sharia than their parents' generation

What many Omani women wear underneath their black abaya (as seen below).

In a poll conducted by Policy Exchange, described as a "right-wing think tank" by the London Telegraph, 40 percent of young Muslims (ages 16-24) said they would prefer that Britain adopt Islamic law or sharia compared to only 17 percent of their parents generation (those over 55 years of age).

Under sharia, the reader will recall, men's testimony in court is worth that of two women, adulterers may be lashed or even stoned to death, thieves can have their hands cut off, and apostates may be put to death.

Now if the reader is wondering whether these young British Muslims really understood the implications of what they were saying, Policy Exchange tried to ferret out the answer to that question by asking whether Muslims who repudiate their faith should be "punished by death." Thirty-six percent of the youths said yes they should, compared to only 19 percent of the over 55s.

Seventy-five percent of the Muslim youth polled also thought Muslim women should wear the veil or hijab to signal their piety. This was compared to only 25 percent of their parents generation. This seems to me to indicate that the same Islamic fashion wave that hit the Middle East in the past 30 years would appear to be becoming the vogue among young British Muslims as well.

Thirty years ago, as the youths over-55 parents' or even grandparents' generation can recall, the streets of Cairo, not to mention Kabul, were filled with women wearing miniskirts. Today the vast majority of women don the headscarf in Egypt and most women are still afraid to shed their burkas in Afghanistan. In Oman, most women did not cover their already modest traditional outfits with the black abaya that almost all the females past puberty now seem to feel compelled to wear. Even in Saudi Arabia, where the constitution has always been the Koran, women were not shrouded in black outside their homes to the same extent they are today.

While sharia traces its origins to the advent and expansion of Islam in the Middle Ages and has always guided Muslims, sharia did not become the basis of modern Muslim nation-state law, especially in countries with codified legal systems until the 1980s. In Pakistan, for example, Islam did not become the source of law until 1981, at which point apostasy indeed became a crime punishable by death. In Iran, it was only after the Islamic revolution in 1979, that the minimum age for marriage was moved from 18 to 9 for women - or rather girls.

In Iran, leftists, communists and other Iranians that were not necessarily inclined toward an Islamic identity rallied behind the new Islamic theocracy because at the time, it seemed to be a charming alternative to Western imperialism (with which the Shah had come to be identified). But three decades later, according to most accounts, life under the "Islamic Republic" has not turned out to be the utopia that was anticipated. Islamic law does not seem to have improved Pakistan much either.

Perhaps these young British Muslims who are so eager to implement sharia should study how Islamic law has actually panned out in the countries that have tried it. Maybe they'll find that most of their elders aren't so ignorant after all in not wanting to see sharia imposed in Britain.

More images from militant-jihad-free Oman

Militant-Jihad-Free Zone: Oman

I wasn't posting last week because I was in Oman. And when in Oman for less than a week, well, you can't just surf the Internet.

(Or so I was repeatedly told whenever I checked my Blackberry. At one point, to get my attention, my daughter had to email me from her Blackberry even though we were traveling in the same car. Before you report me for child neglect, however, you should know that I'm talking about a college graduate here.)

Anyway, one of the attractions of Oman is that in spite of the fact that it is an Islamic country, it is virtually a militant-jihad-free zone.

From what I've been able to gather, no Omani has ever been caught participating in the jihad against coalition forces in Afghanistan or Iraq. While the 9/11 Commission claims that bin Laden recruited an Omani jihadist organization to join his Islamic Army Council, the predecessor organization to al Qaeda he created while living in the Sudan during the early 1990s, this Omani group could not have played a very significant role as it has since dropped off the radar screen.

There were also reportedly a few Omanis alleged to be members of al Qaeda that were arrested in Oman in 2002, as was a Kuwaiti-Canadian al Qaeda member who was caught perhaps on his way to Saudi Arabia, according to a Jamestown report. But exactly what these al Qaeda members were precisely doing in Oman is not known as nothing has been made public, aside from a report that at least some were extradited to U.S. custody (a report denied by Omani officials). From what I can tell, none of these jihadists have been seen or heard from since.

Perhaps the closest encounter Oman had with homegrown Islamic radicals occurred in 2004-5, when some 100-300 people were arrested in connection with a plot to violently disrupt an upcoming trade and culture festival in Oman's capital city, Muscat. The plotters reportedly objected to the festivities because they believed celebrations of this sort were unIslamic. But they vigorously asserted that they were loyal Ibadhis as opposed to Wahhabis or Salafis, the type of Muslims usually identified with al Qaeda.

And ultimately, the 31 persons that were ultimately convicted in connection with this alleged plot had their sentences, which ranged from one to twenty years, immediately pardoned by the Sultan who decided that in the end, they were just a bunch of misguided religious fanatics. (I'm putting words in the Sultan's mouth here, but that's essentially what he said.)

Now why would Oman be so uniquely free from militant jihadism as opposed to, say, its nearest neighbors, Saudi Arabia and Yemen? N. Janardhan, a Jamestown terrorism expert posits that this is because Oman is unique in that it is an Ibadhi Muslim country. That is, the de facto state religion of Oman is a branch of Islam that is Ibadhi, a branch of Islam that is neither Sunni nor Shiite. (Note that the de jure state religion is, however, simply Islam.)

So what is so special about Ibadhi Islam? The simple answer is that Ibadhis part ways with the rest of their coreligionists for pretty much the same reasons the Shiites separated from the Sunnis - because of irreconcilable differences over who should have led the early Muslim community.

Recall that after the Prophet Muhammed died, the Sunnis maintain that the leadership of the umma (Muslim community) correctly fell to the person who was best qualified. The Shiites, on the other hand, believe that this leadership position should have resided with the person who was most closely related to the Prophet. Since the Prophet had no sons, his closest relative was his cousin and son-in-law Ali, who did eventually become what the Sunnis call the 4th "rightly-guided imam" believing as they do that the first four imams (or leaders of the Muslim community) after the Prophet's death were truly divinely-inspired leaders - as opposed to those who came after them, who were well, less meritorious or pious.

The Ibadhis, like the Sunnis, also believe that merit should trump hereditary claims to leadership but reject the Sunni notion that these first four imams were all in fact "rightly guided." This is because the Ibadhis contend that the 3rd such imam, Uthman, introduced too many innovations into Islam. And they believe that the 4th imam, Ali, the Shiite favorite, should have been impeached the moment he agreed to negotiate with as opposed to defeat a group of Muslims who rebelled against him in what came to be called the First Muslim Civil War or Fitna.

The Ibadhis also believe (as do the Shiites) that the Koran was created as opposed to being the actual word of God.

Now I'm not sure whether any of this makes the Ibadhis truly less receptive to militant jihadism in the current era than their Sunni or Shiite counterparts today but the Ibadhis in Oman also seem to be a good deal more tolerant than say their Muslim brothers in next-door Saudi Arabia. Not only do Ibadhis have no problem worshipping at Sunni mosques (some 25 percent of Omanis are Sunnis - mostly the Balochis), but they let the Shiites in Oman build their own mosques as they please, and the Sultanate has even given its Christian and Hindu communities public land on which to build churches and temples. Guest workers in Oman of other faiths, while they have not yet been given real estate, are free to organize their own worship services. And, even more amazingly given the regional norms, while there is no discernible presence of Jews in Oman, it was was the first Gulf Cooperation Council country to host an Israeli prime minister - Yitzhak Rabin, in 1994.

Indeed there is certainly some privileging of Muslims in Oman - nonMuslims cannot proselytize, though informally they do, and Muslim women cannot marry nonMuslim men, though some probably end up doing that too, but compared to its neighbor to the west - and Iran, its neighbor across the Strait of Hormuz, Oman does indeed seem to be exceptionally tolerant.

Could this also be the reason it is remarkably free of militant jihadism?

Michelle Malkin reports on the AP's mystery source, Jamal Hussein

Michelle Malkin, back from Iraq, publishes the results of her investigation into the story of the mystery Associated Press source, Jamal Hussein in what would now be yesterday's New York Post (as I'm reporting from London).

The reader will recall that Mr. Hussein came to the blogosphere's attention when he was identified as the source in the AP's report of the firebombing of Sunni mosques last Thanksgiving, allegedly by Mahdi forces, that culminated in six Sunnis being torched to death that some bloggers found, well, hard to swallow.

When Curt of FloppingAces wondered whether Mr. Hussein, identified by the AP as an Iraqi police captain, really existed, the Iraqi government and U.S. military officials responded that couldn't find any evidence he did, at least not in their records. The New York Times, for its part, could not confirm Mr. Hussein's existence either, nor could Eason Jordan's Iraqslogger. The AP, however, still stood by its story.

Eventually, Iraq's Interior Ministry did revise its finding and determined that yes, the Iraqi police captain did indeed exist. Not surprisingly, the AP was triumphant. Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll even wondered on record why anyone would have "disbelieved" the AP in the first place.

The only problem was, the mosques that were alleged to have been destroyed were still standing and no one could corroborate Mr. Hussein's account that six Sunnis had been doused with kerosene and lit on fire. Not even Michelle Malkin or her colleague, Bryan Preston, who went to Iraq to check out story.

While they found that some of the mosques Mr. Hussein had identified had been damaged in attacks by the Mahdi Army, none had been damaged or destroyed, as he had alleged. Nor could they find anyone who would vouch for Mr. Hussein's account of the torching of the six Sunni individuals.

As Lt. Col. Steven Miska, commander of the Dagger Brigade at Forward Operating Base Justice, told Michelle: "Part of it is, if you're relying on Iraqi reporters, well, what are their biases? What clans are they from and tribes? Why are they telling me this? What's his underlying motivation? And if you quote a police chief, well, those guys have underlying motivations, too . . ."

It does seem a bit odd, and I'm not the first to point this out, that the AP, which still stands by its story, no longers apparently uses Mr. Hussein as a source, though they had used him on some 60 different occasions in the past and still claim he is legitimate.

Now for the obvious question: Should not perhaps persons with the last name Hussein be more carefully vetted than your average Iraqi? Not that I'm suggesting that all people with this last name (or middle name for that matter) should be generally suspected. But in the Sunni areas of Iraq, well, wouldn't this seem obvious?

Is Pakistan colluding with the Taliban?

Or is the Taliban - not to mention other interested parties - trying to nail the ISI and by extension Pakistan?

In this report, from what would seem to be an aptly named place, Pashtunabad (I'm not kidding here), a neighborhood in Quetta, Pakistan, as well as other places, the New York Times explores the rumors that Pakistan's intelligency agency, the ISI is behind a resurgent (and insurgent) Taliban in Afghanistan. The Taliban, the reader will recall, were dominated by the Pashtuns.

The problem one is struck by when reading the Times report, is how does one ferret out what the real truth is in a place named Pashtunabad? (Actually, I think it's a very nice name in a very nice language in a very nice culture, to those readers who will barrage me with emails for making fun of their neighborhood, their grandmother's, or the local language.)

According to the Times, Western diplomats, Pakistani officials, and almost everyone the newspaper spoke to said they thought that Pakistani officials were backing the Taliban. This isn't because Pakinstan loves these guys (lovable though they ,may be; again, I don't want to be appear to be racist or Islamophobic here), but because they regard the Taliban as Pakistan's "strategic depth."

Now, knowing what we know now, it would seem to be odd to characterize the Taliban as anyone's strategic death, wouldn't it? (Well, ignoring Al Qaeda for a minute.) But according to who the presumably knowledgable sources the Times quotes, there is some logic here.

The idea is that the Taliban are supposed to provide a buffer to block Indian and Russian expansion on Pakistan's Western front. This would be that lovely resort area on the Afghan-Pakistani border that everyone wants to seek refuge in because no central government has never been able to control it.

Of course I don't need to point out that the ISI is notorious for having enabled the Taliban back in the day, i.e., before 9/11. In fact, the head of the ISI during this period, Hamid Gul, is still said to believe that Pakistan was right to encourage these, could we say, fanatical madrassah types to take over Afghanistan. Yes, I acknowledge, the Taliban did provide some security, in Mr. Gul's defense. And, no less an authority than the Pakistani president himself has said that retired intelligence officials may well be supporting, as the Times puts it, these "former protégés" of theirs.

That said, the reader should bear in mind that many of the people the Times polled would seem to have a vested interest in fingering the Pakistani government, as opposed to say, themselves or their children - as the Times noted, Pashtunabad is "flagrantly" Taliban.

But would these "flagrant" Taliban sympathizers really be reliable sources on this story? Wouldn't they fear Pakistani reprisals if they sided with those who are harming Pakistan's international standing by opposing the UN-supported government and the NATO forces in Afghanistan?

Also, bear in mind that many people the Times asked to weigh in on the situation were identified as Pakistani dissidents. Surely they wouldn't lose any sleep if they were simply trying to frame the Pakistani government as being dissidents, they oppose it.

So, the moral of this story is: Keep in mind that old Roman question when you read this piece; namely, qui bono? (Who benefits?)

One person who did not subscribe to the popular perception, incidentally, was one Hajji Abdul Hai, 50, the father of a 25-year-old killed in Afghanistan in an airstrike in May. As Cindy Sheehan fans would say, surely he would have some moral authority. He told the Times that, au contraire to what everyone else seems to have thought, his son was not motivated by any sinister force but only his faith.

“From the start it was his spirit to take part in jihad,” he is quoted as saying. “It’s all to do with personal will. If someone agrees, then he goes. Even if someone wishes to, no one can stop him.”

The elder brother of a 22 year-old also killed in Afghanistan, Allah Dad, however, summed up the general opinion, when he said yes, the ISI was to blame for sending his brother to his death: “We don’t know how he made contact with those jihadi groups,” he told the Times, "[But] it is not possible to go to Afghanistan without the help of the I.S.I. Everyone says this.”

Clash of civilizations?

London Mayor Ken Livingstone debates leading American "neocon" "Islamophobe" also known as Islamic history scholar Daniel Pipes

Yesterday, London's Mayor Ken Livingstone faced off against eminent Islamic scholar Daniel Pipes, sometimes described as an “Islamophobe,” "racist," or "neocon" by his critics, in the opening debate of “A World Civilisation or a Clash of Civilisations,” a conference hosted by the Greater London Authority.

In his remarks, Mayor Livingstone said he was hosting the event because he wanted to avoid repeating the “tragedy” of the last century – that is to say, the Cold War, which he suggested without bothering to offer evidence, was a sinister plot designed by a small group of Americans who were intent on world domination.

Mr. Livingstone then went on to regret Western hegemony in general in the modern period, blaming it on slavery and the discovery of America, as opposed to say, the enlightenment or industrial revolution.

The mayor did take pains to reject the notion that he was a multicultural absolutist by affirming that not all cultural norms are acceptable, pointing out that even he could see the error in cannibalism or female genital mutilation.

It was noteworthy the mayor did not take this opportunity to promote his own personal beliefs, as he has in the past, suggesting that they are so morally superior that his fellow Londoners should emulate his example and not flush the toilet after urinating (for example).

While the mayor seemed to relish pointing out various Western mistakes and failings, perhaps to relieve himself of his white man's burden, he did decline to call the former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon a "war criminal" this time, though he did say he thought the creation of the state of Israel was a mistake. Again he blamed this decision, made by the United Nations, on sinister forces in the U.S. government.

Given that the mayor is a noted leftist who plans to use London taxpayers' money to celebrate 50 years of Cuban dictatorship under Fidel Castro, it did strike this blogger as unevenhanded to say the least, that Mr. Livingston did not acknowledge the key role the Soviet Union played in the UN decision to recognize Israel, and well, the Cold War.

Dr. Pipes in his remarks, rejected the notion of a clash of civilizations and said that what he saw taking place was a battle between civilization and barbarism. He went on to say that in his mind, civilization was the place where freedom and the rule of law prevail, and that it was not the exclusive province of any culture, religion, or race.

Although Dr. Pipes refused to vilify Islam, even citing a verse from the Koran to support his argument that civilization was well within the purview of Muslims, he did say that he thinks that today's barbaric enemy is radical Islamism, or the ideology that would impose Islamic law on everyone, including non-Muslims.

Dr. Pipes rejects sharia as a basis for law in civilized society because given the way today's radical Islamists interpret Islamic law, this would privilege Muslims above non-Muslims, men above women, condemn homosexuals and apostates to death, and call for the stoning of adulterous women, among other details.

If Mayor Livingstone seemed intent on promoting London, and Britain in general as a multicultural success story, Dr. Pipes countered that because so many Britons have participated in terror plots around the world, citing some 15 instances, the reality was the opposite: One could even make the case that because of this history, Britain should be added to the list of state sponsors of terrorism.

If Mayor Livingstone did not elect to call his invited guest Dr. Pipes a racist or an Islamophobe himself, his debate partner, Councillor Salma Yaqoob of Birmingham, had no trouble doing so, even if this meant distorting the American scholar's remarks and extensive written record. For example, Councillor Yaqoob identified Dr. Pipes as a presidential advisor and proponent of the Bush administration's Iraq policy, assertions that as Dr. Pipes pointed out, have no basis in fact.

Councillor Yaboob, a member of George Galloway's Respect Party, delivered her remarks in what this blogger has to describe as a diatribe. Her shrill, demagogic manner contrasted sharply with her otherwise pleasant and fashionable demeanor. Dressed in a figure-flattering black pantsuit, the British politician displayed panache in the way she tied her colorful silk headscarf or hijab, the headscarf some Muslim women like to wear to signal their piety in public.

Dr. Pipes' debating partner, Douglas Murray, the 27 year-old author of Neoconservatism: Why We Need It, pointed out that Councillor Yaqoob entered British politics when she spoke out publicly in defense of the eight Britons who were convicted in 1999 of plotting to bomb Western targets in Yemen.

After the 7/7 bombings in London, as Murray went on to recall, Councillor Yaqoob seemed to condone the bombings when she characterized them as a response to Britain's Iraq War policy. As she was described in the official conference materials, she is also "a leading national figure in Britain's anti-war movement."

When a man from the audience indicated that his son had been killed in the 7/7 bombings and asked Councillor Yaqoob who exactly she thought these "reprisals" were supposed to target, she declined to respond, as did Mayor Livingstone, who has espoused similar views, for example in a BBC interview shortly after the attacks.

Gavin Esler, the BBC newsman who chaired the panel, ended the debate by quipping that he hoped press coverage of the event would go beyond the obvious headline that Mayor Livingstone had finally taken a stand against cannibalism.

Correction: It turns out that the man who I thought indicated his son had been killed on 7/7 was Sir Martin Gilbert, Winston Churchill's official biographer. What Sir Gilbert was really saying was that his son, along with thousands of others, was one of the intended targets of these "reprisals."

Abu Sayyaf leader confirmed dead

The Associated Press reports that DNA tests confirmed the death of an FBI-most-wanted terrorist, Abu Sayyaf leader Khadaffy Janjalani, the head of the Philippines-based terrorist organization believed to have long-standing links with al Qaeda.

Janjalani was killed in a battle with Philippines forces in September.

ASG was behind the 2004 ferry bombing in the Philippines that killed 116 people. The group has also carried out kidnappings and hostage-taking, including the taking of an American missionary couple and tourist who was beheaded.

Osama bin Laden is thought to have provided the group’s $5 million seed money. Bin Laden had met the group's founding leader, Janjalani's elder brother, when the two men fought together against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s. The group's mission is to establish a pan-Islamic state spanning southeast Asia and including parts of the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Burma and Thailand.

In the mid-1990s Ramzi Yousef, the lead 1993 World Trade Center bomber, and his uncle, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, worked with the ASG when they bombed Philippines Air Flight 434 in which a Japanese passenger was killed. This was supposed to be a test-run for Operation Bojinka, their plot to simultaneously explode a dozen trans-Pacific commercial airliners in mid-flight.

ASG is also linked to Jemaah Islamiyah, the Indonesian group that carried out the Bali bombings in 2002.

The group is thought to have 200-400 core supporters. The Philippines also announced that they had killed Janjalani’s possible successor in a battle last Tuesday.

American hero, Second Lieutenant Mark Daily, RIP

Michelle Malkin reports that she received news via one of her readers that Second Lieutenant Mark Daily, 23, was killed in an IED attack in Mosul along with three other soldiers.

He enlisted in the Army after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. He was accepted into UCLA's ROTC program and in 2005, he was named the ROTC's outstanding cadet and was a Distinguished Military Graduate, the ROTC's highest award. He was deployed to Iraq three months ago.

He leaves behind a wife of 18 months.

In MySpace he explained why he joined the military. As Michelle did, I'm reprinting what he wrote in full because it deserves to be read and you won't find this in the MSM.

Sunday, October 29, 2006
WHY I JOINED
Current mood: optimistic

Why I Joined:

This question has been asked of me so many times in so many different contexts that I thought it would be best if I wrote my reasons for joining the Army on my page for all to see. First, the more accurate question is why I volunteered to go to Iraq. After all, I joined the Army a week after we declared war on Saddam's government with the intention of going to Iraq. Now, after years of training and preparation, I am finally here.

Much has changed in the last three years. The criminal Ba'ath regime has been replaced by an insurgency fueled by Iraq's neighbors who hope to partition Iraq for their own ends. This is coupled with the ever present transnational militant Islamist movement which has seized upon Iraq as the greatest way to kill Americans, along with anyone else they happen to be standing near. What was once a paralyzed state of fear is now the staging ground for one of the largest transformations of power and ideology the Middle East has experienced since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Thanks to Iran, Syria, and other enlightened local actors, this transformation will be plagued by interregional hatred and genocide. And I am now in the center of this.

Is this why I joined?

Yes. Much has been said about America's intentions in overthrowing Saddam Hussein and seeking to establish a new state based upon political representation and individual rights. Many have framed the paradigm through which they view the conflict around one-word explanations such as "oil" or "terrorism," favoring the one which best serves their political persuasion. I did the same thing, and anyone who knew me before I joined knows that I am quite aware and at times sympathetic to the arguments against the war in Iraq. If you think the only way a person could bring themselves to volunteer for this war is through sheer desperation or blind obedience then consider me the exception (though there are countless like me).

I joined the fight because it occurred to me that many modern day "humanists" who claim to possess a genuine concern for human beings throughout the world are in fact quite content to allow their fellow "global citizens" to suffer under the most hideous state apparatuses and conditions. Their excuses used to be my excuses. When asked why we shouldn't confront the Ba'ath party, the Taliban or the various other tyrannies throughout this world, my answers would allude to vague notions of cultural tolerance (forcing women to wear a veil and stay indoors is such a quaint cultural tradition), the sanctity of national sovereignty (how eager we internationalists are to throw up borders to defend dictatorships!) or even a creeping suspicion of America's intentions. When all else failed, I would retreat to my fragile moral ecosystem that years of living in peace and liberty had provided me. I would write off war because civilian casualties were guaranteed, or temporary alliances with illiberal forces would be made, or tank fuel was toxic for the environment. My fellow "humanists" and I would relish contently in our self righteous declaration of opposition against all military campaigns against dictatorships, congratulating one another for refusing to taint that aforementioned fragile moral ecosystem that many still cradle with all the revolutionary tenacity of the members of Rage Against the Machine and Greenday. Others would point to America's historical support of Saddam Hussein, sighting it as hypocritical that we would now vilify him as a thug and a tyrant. Upon explaining that we did so to ward off the fiercely Islamist Iran, which was correctly identified as the greater threat at the time, eyes are rolled and hypocrisy is declared. Forgetting that America sided with Stalin to defeat Hitler, who was promptly confronted once the Nazis were destroyed, America's initial engagement with Saddam and other regional actors is identified as the ultimate argument against America's moral crusade.

And maybe it is. Maybe the reality of politics makes all political action inherently crude and immoral. Or maybe it is these adventures in philosophical masturbation that prevent people from ever taking any kind of effective action against men like Saddam Hussein. One thing is for certain, as disagreeable or as confusing as my decision to enter the fray may be, consider what peace vigils against genocide have accomplished lately. Consider that there are 19 year old soldiers from the Midwest who have never touched a college campus or a protest who have done more to uphold the universal legitimacy of representative government and individual rights by placing themselves between Iraqi voting lines and homicidal religious fanatics. Often times it is less about how clean your actions are and more about how pure your intentions are.

So that is why I joined. In the time it took for you to read this explanation, innocent people your age have suffered under the crushing misery of tyranny. Every tool of philosophical advancement and communication that we use to develop our opinions about this war are denied to countless human beings on this planet, many of whom live under the regimes that have, in my opinion, been legitimately targeted for destruction. Some have allowed their resentment of the President to stir silent applause for setbacks in Iraq. Others have ironically decried the war because it has tied up our forces and prevented them from confronting criminal regimes in Sudan, Uganda, and elsewhere.

I simply decided that the time for candid discussions of the oppressed was over, and I joined.

In digesting this posting, please remember that America's commitment to overthrow Saddam Hussein and his sons existed before the current administration and would exist into our future children's lives had we not acted. Please remember that the problems that plague Iraq today were set in motion centuries ago and were up until now held back by the most cruel of cages. Don't forget that human beings have a responsibility to one another and that Americans will always have a responsibility to the oppressed. Don't overlook the obvious reasons to disagree with the war but don't cheapen the moral aspects either. Assisting a formerly oppressed population in converting their torn society into a plural, democratic one is dangerous and difficult business, especially when being attacked and sabotaged from literally every direction. So if you have anything to say to me at the end of this reading, let it at least include "Good Luck"

Mark Daily

On his MySpace front page next to his picture, he featured this quote:

"Patience demolishes mountains" -Arab proverb

According to Michelle, he wanted to be a journalist.

Rest in peace, Mark Daily. God bless you for your sacrifice.

Egyptian blogger faces 9 years in prison for insulting Islam and Mubarak

Egyptian blogger Abdel Kareem Nabil is on trial in Egypt for insulting Islam, inciting sedition, and mocking the Egyptian president, the New York Times reports. Nabil faces up to nine years in prison if found guilty of the charges. He has been in detention since November.

Egypt is by no means unique in criminalizing blasphemy. In most Muslim countries, it is illegal to criticize Islam, and may be punishable by death though such sentences are rarely carried out. In Pakistan, a religious court ruled that the death sentence should be mandatory for blasphemy though this has not been enacted as a matter of law.

Sanctions having effect in Iran

Two Iranian newspapers that are said to reflect the opinions of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's Supreme Leader, are calling for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to keep his nose out of the country's nuclear program, the New York Times is reporting.

As Iran becomes increasingly marginalized by the international community which sanctioned the Islamic Republic in December for its defiant stance on nuclear enrichment, its economy has begun to be affected. The Iranian stock market has plummeted. Many European banks have stopped doing business with Iran.

One of the newspapers, the daily Jomhouri-Eslami, rebuked the Iranian president for having referred to the December sanctions as "a torn piece of paper" and went on to pronounce that “The resolution is certainly harmful for the country.”

“The resolution has had a psychological effect on people,” Ali Hagh, an economist in Tehran told the Times. “It does not make sense for investors not to consider political events when they want to invest their money.”

CAIR thinks Americans can't differentiate fact from fiction

The Council on American Islamic Relations, which describes itself as America's largest Muslim civil rights group, is objecting to popular Fox TV show, 24's season premiere. The new season starts out with Jack Bauer and his fellow characters having to deal with a series of suicide attacks across America, including the detonation of a nuclear bomb outside Los Angeles.

"The overwhelming impression you get is fear and hatred for Muslims," Rabiah Ahmed, a spokeswoman for CAIR told the Associated Press. "After watching that show, I was afraid to go to the grocery store because I wasn't sure the person next to me would be able to differentiate between fiction and reality.

In its defense, Fox issued a written statement Wednesday night, saying "24 is a heightened drama about anti-terrorism," adding, "After five seasons, the audience clearly understands this, and realizes that any individual, family, or group (ethnic or otherwise) that engages in violence is not meant to be typical."

Moreover, the nework noted that 24 has not singled out Muslims, pointing out that the shows' previous villains have included Anglos, Baltic Europeans, Germans, Russians, and even the president of the United States.

Perhaps this explains President Bush's low approval ratings in recent polls.

FISA courts will now oversee warrantless wiretaps

In a letter addressed to the Senate Judicial Committee, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez announced that the warrantless surveillance of communications from suspected terrorists abroad with persons in the United States will now be overseen by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Previously these wiretaps were part of the Terrorist Surveillance Program the Bush administration authorized in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

The Bush administration had argued that the FISA courts were too slow and their standards were too burdensome to be useful in tracking down the members of al Qaeda and related organizations. Nevertheless, the administration was widely criticized for having expanded the powers of the executive in the eyes of the program's critics.

The New York Times reports that Justice Department officials did not say whether the FISA court had addressed the Bush administration's earlier concerns by agreeing to streamline their cumbersome procedures or standards or whether the order that was issued pertained to individual cases.

Powerline reports good news from Saudi Arabia

Stephen Schwarz, a vocal critique of Wahhabism and, not surprisingly Saudi Arabia itself, is becoming "more optimistic" that, "King Abdullah is in fact prevailing in his struggle against the backward elements in his family," so Powerline reports.

Schwarz's evidence? According to Powerline, Schwarz points to the fact the Saudis have relaxed their censorship policy to the point where they can now permit the publication of a book that goes so far as to praise Jewish contributions to civilization.

The state of free speech in France

In this month's issue of Commentary, Christian Delacampagne gives the reader some interesting context in "The Redeker Affair." This, for those of you who may not have followed the story, Robert Redeker is a French highschool teacher, who published an op-ed in Le Figaro, in which he posed the question, "What should the free world do in the Face of Islamist intimidation?"

To make a long story short, because Redeker called the Prophet Muhammad a "master of hatred" and said that Islam, unlike Christianity or Judaism, "exalts violence and hatred” he was widely denounced to the point of receiving death threats. He and his family were forced to go into hiding, at his own expense but under French police protection.

According to Delacampagne, the only French leader who would vociferously defend Redeker's right to free speech was Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin who said the fatwa calling for his death for having insulted Islam was “unacceptable.” Most officials and human rights advocates simply tried to distance themselves from Redeker's remarks. Le Monde, France’s leading newspaper, summed up the prevailing reaction when it characterized Redeker’s piece as “excessive, misleading, and insulting,” and blasphemous.

Redeker's tale reminded Delacampagne of his own painful history in France. He says that because he published a book on what is considered to be a politically incorrect topic in France, anti-Semitism, he too was shut out of an academic career in France. Though he eventually found work in the United States, he claims the situation in France has only gotten worse over the years: "[Now] to speak at conferences or to be considered for important posts, a scholar must be prepared to describe the colonial era in French history as nothing less than an exercise in genocide and to denounce American policy in the Middle East as barbaric cruelty."

Beginning with Charles de Gaulle, he says the French have taken a distinctly "pro-Arab" stance in order to gain back the political capital they lost during the Algerian war and their other colonial activities in the Middle East. Zionism, or support for the state of Israel, he says is now seen as "just a form of Western colonialism, now backed by the brute strength of an imperialistic United States."

Delacampagne tells of an email he received from Redeker a few weeks after he had gone into hiding. “I never thought that such a thing could happen in our old Republican France,” he wrote his friend. "Neither did I," Delacampagne writes, "But things have changed. What was once unthinkable in France has already come to pass."

Heather MacDonald challenges "war on terror hysteria"

Gene Expression, the blog, posts an interview with conservative writer Heather MacDonald in which she wonders about the "existential threat" the United States purportedly faces from Islamists. Her thoughts:

"For all the barbarity of popular entertainment and the historical ignorance of the American public, American civilization and the West generally are at the top of their games-contrary to war on terror hysteria that holds that we face an 'existential threat' from Islamists. The rate of technological innovation is higher than at any point in human history and will undoubtedly only accelerate in the future. We are reaping a whirlwind of unfathomable benefits from scientific research.

"Would I prefer it if our elites had the taste of 18th century aristocratic patrons and were subsidizing the likes of Mozart, Haydn, and Tiepolo, instead of Jeff Koons and Richard Prince? A thousand times, yes! But as much as I yearn to live in a world that could produce such beauty, I have to recognize that this is the best of all possible times to be alive. I don't know how many of us would give up our astounding array of choices, despite their costs above all in family stability, to go back to a time of more restricted individual autonomy."

Former CIA chief Woolsey on what to do about Iran

In testimony before the House Committee for Foreign Affairs, former CIA chief R. James Woolsey gave his personal view of what the U.S. should do about Iran.

Wooley said the Islamic Republic’s “threats to destroy Israel and, on a longer time-scale, the United States are part and parcel of its essence," and that this is nothing new as, in his words, "Iran’s regime has defined itself by its fundamental hostility to the West, and especially Israel and the US, for nearly three decades (“Great Satan” etc.).”

He claims that President Ahmadinejad is a follower of the Ayatollah Mesbah-Yazdi in Qum, and because of this association, believes that “large-scale killing should be welcomed because it will summon the return of the 12th Imam, the Mahdi, which in turn will lead to the end of the world.”

As evidence that this is the case, Woolsey cites assertions he says can be found on the Islamic Republic's Broadcasting website which say the world is in its "last days" and that soon Jesus will appear, along with the Mahdi, the imam that Shiites believe went into hiding in the 9th century who will return after a cosmic war to usher in the end stage of God's plan for humanity, i.e. the age of Islam.

(For more on Ahmadinejad and his belief in the return of the Mahdi (or Madhaviat, as the belief is called), see Scott Peterson, "Waiting for the rapture in Iran," Christian Science Monitor, December 12, 2005. And for an alternative view, see Noah Feldman, “Islam, Terror and the Second Nuclear Age,” The New York Times, October 29, 2006)

Iran's determination to proceed with a nuclear agenda - whatever the motivation - has, Woolsey says, already inspired a nuclear arms race in the region. Why else, he asks, would both Saudi Arabia and Egypt have recently announced their own intentions to develop nuclear power (albeit for energy purposes) if not to counter for Iran's nuclear program?

Woolsey is pessimistic that banning the sale of dual-use materials to Iran could ever force Tehran to abandon its nuclear agenda as he says that Iran could easily buy what it needs from what he calls “its co-conspirator North Korea” who is believed to have built a nuclear weapon.

Instead, he argues that sanctions should target the Iranian leadership, and not the Iranian people. He suggests, for example, banning the Iranian leadership from travel or perhaps pursuing Ahmadinejad in an international tribunal for his violations of the Geneva Convention because of his calls for the destruction of Israel.

Woolsey says he doesn’t think anything less than regime change will work but he doesn’t think this needs to involve the U.S. military, however.

He says the U.S. should state its goals for Iran clearly and then support the domestic players inside Iran that could effect this change. He believes that Iran’s minorities – Arab, Kurdish, Azeri, and Baluch – as well as Iran’s young have enough grievances against the regime to want to change it. In other words, Woolsey rejects the recommendation made by the Iraq Study Group, that the U.S. should try and engage the Iranian regime, says instead, “we should indeed engage, but with the Iranian people, not their oppressors.”

Woolsey says to reach the Iranian people, the U.S. should resuscitate a Cold War method, and tell the Iranian people what is really taking place inside their country as opposed to what we are doing now, that is broadcasting popular music and world news briefs into Iran, and occasionally even ones that have a distinctly anti-American slant.

Woolsey claims that last year a Voice of America correspondent, in a broadcast into Iran, characterized the arrest of 21 individuals in Britain who were said to be plotting to use liquid explosives to blow up transAtlantic airplanes as “a conspiracy against Islam” designed by the U.S. and Britain to distract world attention away from the "victories" Hezbollah was racking up in Lebanon. (On this Woolsey cited Richard Benkin in Asian Tribune Aug. 12, 2006, vol. 6 no. 41.)

What is going on in UK mosques?

Maybe you don't want to know.

An undercover investigation by the UK-based Channel 4 Dispatches reveals that some of Britain’s leading mosques are perpetuating an intolerant view of Islam, encouraging worshippers to wage jihad against "enemies of Islam" such as the United States and the UK, and hit girls if they refuse to wear hijab.

As The (London) Observer reports, in the video Dispatches made during its 12-month investigation (available on YouTube), a cleric can be seen telling worshippers at the Sparkbrook mosque that “you cannot accept the rule of the kaffir [non-Muslim].”

Another speaker at the same mosque can be seen on video calling democracy “kuffocracy” and referring to it as “the hidden cancerous aim of these people.” At the time he made these remarks, this man was the headmaster of a local Islamic high school, Darul Uloom, according to The Observer, though he has since been fired because the school determined that, to quote Dar Uloom, “many of his opinions were inconsistent with the policies of the school.”

The umbrella organization, UKIM, that oversees the Sparkbrook mosque told The Observer: “We are a nationwide organisation and hold different programmes in our mosques. We are very concerned about this. We have instructed all our branches not to allow any more speakers with radical or fundamentalist views.”

Dispatches also documented that DVDs and internet broadcasts produced by extremist preachers are popular items at a London bookstore at the Regent’s Park Mosque. On one DVD being sold there, a Saudi-trained preacher, Sheikh Feiz, can be seen saying,
“Kaffir is the worst word that can ever be written, a sign of infidelity, disbelief, filth, a sign of dirt.”

The company that runs the bookstore issued a statement to The Observer saying: “It is totally unfair to blame [us] for any of the views expressed in these lectures.”

Lord Ahmed, described by The Observer as “the convener of the government's Preventing Extremism taskforce” issued the following statement to Channel 4 in response to its documentary: “While I appreciate that exaggerated opinions make good TV, they do not make for good community relations.”

Iraqslogger reports: Sunni leader says Sunnis have only themselves to blame for their political marginalization in Iraq

Veteran reporter Nir Rosen of Iraqslogger reports that a leading Iraqi Sunni tribal chief living in exile in Amman, Jordan has admitted that the problems in Iraq are not the fault of the current Shia dominated Iraqi government. “The Sunnis left the political process,” he is reported as saying, “this is our fault. Sunni scholars led by Harith al Dhari (leader of the Association of Muslim Scholars) forbade political participation.” This was the first time, Rosen says, that he has ever heard an Iraqi Sunni leader make such an admission.

Sheikh Saad Mushhan Naif claims to lead the largest subtribe of one of Iraq’s largest tribes (namely, the Aithawi, a subgroup of the Dulaimi tribe) of the restive Anbar province. Saad told Rosen that the Shiite militias who are killing his fellow Sunnis in Iraq “belong to Iran not Iraq or America," adding, "there is a new dictatorship now, a religious one.”

More than half the Americans killed in Iraq last year were killed in Anbar province.

Saad also told Rosen that “Al Qaeda is not cooperating with the Iraqi resistance,” and that “the real Iraqi resistance considers al Qaeda an enemy.” Outside of Baghdad, this is also the most dangerous place to be an Iraqi.

Iraqslogger's report seems to be corroborated by a report USA Today issued yesterday, in which U.S. military officials noted that the Anbar province has seen an upsurge recently in the number of people willing to join the ranks of the police force. In the past two weeks, 2,000 applications were received compared to the "few dozen" that were received in September.

After Al Qaeda killed a popular Sunni tribal leader, the Sunnis have increasingly come to recognize that the message of Al Qaeda is "anarchy and chaos," according to Maj. Gen. Richard Zilmer, the commanding officer in Anbar province.

Incidentally, for those of you who haven’t yet discovered Iraqslogger, it is a great place to go for news on Iraq. It is run by Eason Jordan, the former head of CNN news, who after a series of awkward admissions and allegations, seems to have fully embraced the potential of the Internet to collect and disseminate news. He is currently hosting blogger and syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin over in Iraq as she investigates the story behind the mysterious AP source Jamil Hussein.

Update: Eason Jordan wrote to say that though he offered to host Michelle, she ultimately declined his offer and went to Iraq on her own where she embedded herself with the U.S. military.

Update: Michelle is now back and you can see her first report here.